


The Abyss's Gaze

by PhoenixFawkes123



Category: RWBY
Genre: Beowolves, Character Death, Character Study, The Last Rose of Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-07
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-10 09:12:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12296043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhoenixFawkes123/pseuds/PhoenixFawkes123
Summary: “Little Red, little red, what a big scythe you have.” A woman in a red cloak turned towards her pitch black companion.“The better to protect you with, my dear.” Little red unravelled her scythe.“What pretty eyes you have.” The woman laughed.“Aren’t they hypnotizing, dear?” She advanced towards the black, amorphic wolf, scythe still raised.“Little red, little red, between the two of us, which one is the wolf?”The scythe came down upon the misshapen wolf with a damning ripping noise. The wolf whimpered in pain as its lifeblood drained out of him. In moments, there was no trace left of the little wolf except a twisting black smoke where the corpse of the wolf once rested.





	The Abyss's Gaze

“Little Red, little red, what a big scythe you have.” A woman in a red cloak turned towards her pitch black companion.

“The better to protect you with, my dear.” Little red unravelled her scythe.

“What pretty eyes you have.” The woman laughed.

“Aren’t they hypnotizing, dear?” She advanced towards the black, amorphic wolf, scythe still raised.

“Little red, little red, between the two of us, which one is the wolf?”

The scythe came down upon the misshapen wolf with a damning ripping noise. The wolf whimpered in pain as its lifeblood drained out of him. In moments, there was no trace left of the little wolf except a twisting black smoke where the corpse of the wolf once rested. 

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Ruby sighed as she regained consciousness, annoyed that her mind had conjured up such a ridiculous dream. Winter surrounded her, blanketing the ground in white, lulling all living things on remnant to sleep. The cold bit at her face, stinging like a thousand needles, her hands a garish blue due to mild frostbite. Regardless of her body's fervent protests, Ruby would remain outside in the cold, pursuing Grimm with a feverish intensity. Her aura would handle all of the repercussions, and although yang would be livid, she would come around. She understood, on some level, why Ruby had to do this.

Ruby let herself fall out of the rough bark of the branch she was resting on to land on the soft, white snow below in a standard crouch. Her combat partner briefly ran through her mind, a passing thought, and Ruby wondered how well she’s been holding up since Beacon fell. Righting herself, Ruby turned her head so that she stared up at the dark, foreboding clouds that seemed to follow her everywhere these days and sighed heavily.

Remembering her mother was always easy. Ruby took solace in those happy memories, even if they were few and far between. On her darkest days, Ruby would let her imagination carry her to where her mother still lived, to where she was still a child. In Ruby’s mind, her mother’s white cloak fluttered behind her as she walked, a beacon that Ruby seemed forever unable to reach. Ruby would stumble behind her, trying to keep up, and when her mother noticed, she would slow down to allow her to catch up. She would sweep Ruby off the ground and hold her close to her chest, enveloping her in warmth and the potent smell of Roses.

Her mother had wanted that particular poem engraved onto her tombstone as her epitaph. She only told Tai. You understand why she didn’t tell you, you were just a child after all, but the heart rarely listens to the mind when feelings come into play. 

“Thus kindly I scatter.”

Idly Ruby wondered if she remembered the rest of it. If she interprets it the way Ruby does. The last Rose, maybe not of Summer, but of Winter, fated to sing the rest of the sordid poem.

“So soon may I follow,  
When friendships decay,  
And from Love's shining circle  
The gems drop away.  
When true hearts lie withered,  
And fond ones are flown,  
Oh! who would inhabit  
This bleak world alone?”

Lost in her musings, Ruby almost missed the rasp of hidden Grimm. She had never been able to be truly unaware of the Grimm. She had always pegged it to be some kind of acute awareness, honed from years spent in the woods among wolf-like Grimm, but ever since Qrow revealed to her the nature of her eyes, Ruby wondered if there was more to it.

The Grimm emerged from the dark, materializing in the cold, barren clearing and throwing themselves at Ruby in an attempt to overwhelm her with numbers. Ruby reached around her back to unravel Crescent Rose, the weight of her scythe comfortable in her experienced hands. Careful not to find herself surrounded, Ruby activated her semblance, dashing around to the beowolf on the far left and slashing him open with her beloved Crescent Rose.

Ruby whipped past another beowolf, ripping into the flesh around its neck and severing it. Twisting inhumanly, her scythe found its mark in the flank of an ursa, spraying her with blood that would fade after the creature was dead. A nevermore circled above, diving down in an attempt to split Ruby down the middle. Ruby dodged deftly, sinking Crescent Rose into the Nevermore’s back, hoping to hitch a ride on the flying Grimm for a while. The Nevermore shrieked in pain, its screams reverberating through Ruby’s frame, and Ruby was forced to dislodge her scythe from its back as it thrashed in pain. 

“Mother…..,” the Nevermore wailed as it cried out in agony. “Where did you go?” Ruby’s blood ran cold. 

Sometimes, she could hear the voices of Grimm, tell what kind of emotions they were made up of. She had never told Yang, or even Qrow, though maybe she should have. She just didn’t want to consider the implications of such an abnormal ability. 

Ruby grit her teeth. The Nevermore couldn’t be talking about Summer. Ruby wasn’t dead. As far as she could tell, the Nevermore had just eaten a child who had lost their mother.

“Motheeerrr, mother, mother, motheeeerrr,” the Nevermore shrieked it again and again and it grated on Ruby’s sanity until she saw red. Ruby didn’t even remember moving, but when she looked back the Nevermore was split cleanly in half, from mask to groin. Breathing heavily, Ruby turned Crescent Rose into a sniper rifle and riddled bullets into the Nevermore long after it was nothing more than a swirl of black mist. Struggling to catch her breath Ruby looked down at herself and realized that she was bathed in Nevermore blood. Her breathing rate increased.

It was supposed to disappear. It was just a part of her imagination. It would be gone in seconds. Ruby shut her eyes and focused on calming her breathing.

Never let the world take away your smile, love.

Ruby had listened to her mother. She smiled at everyone, saw the best in everything. When everything seemed bleakest, she was the one to show others the light. She would be the paragon of virtue the people of Remnant needed. She would lead armies, defy death, and slay humanity’s enemies. She would uphold Summer Rose’s legacy, and then she would follow her mother into death’s waiting arms. 

And then the poem would be finished, the last stanza sung, and the last Rose would scatter, because the world was too bleak for some.

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End file.
